Movie of the Day: February 10, 2003

IMDb Movie of the Day
Before there was Monica Lewinsky and media crises were as regular as hurricane season, there was Christine Keeler, a sexy British showgirl who sent the London tabloids into a frenzy and almost single-handedly brought down the British government. In the early '60s, party girl Keeler blossomed under the care of Dr. Stephen Ward, who groomed her to cavort merrily with his upper-class friends as the sexual revolution's first shots were being fired, and London began to swing like a pendulum do. Summoned out to a countryside estate, Christine catches the eye of British Defense Minister John Profumo, a married man very high in government who becomes a smitten kitten in the face of Christine's charms. Unbeknownst to Profumo, though, Christine had also been canoodling with a Russian attaché, with Ward's tacit approval. Had heated pillow talk during the Cold War turned into an inadvertent exchange of governmental secrets? Probably not, but when the gossip started trickling out, Profumo lied to Parliament about his relationship with Christine, tipping over the first domino in a line that would eventually demolish the British Conservative party. Private antics became public fodder, with no one emerging unscathed. The Profumo Affair, as it came to be known, was a salacious story indeed, but in Michael Caton-Jones' Scandal, it gets a clear-eyed treatment that's sympathetic to all involved, and sadly touching as well. As Ward, the amateur Henry Higgins to Christine's Eliza, John Hurt brought a quiet sensitivity and humor to a man seen by the press as a shabby-genteel pimp, and his platonic romance with Joanne Whalley-Kilmer's Christine is oddly sweet and innocent in the wake of the sex, lies, and drugs that surrounded them. As the other man in the odd triangle, Ian McKellen's Profumo is both powerful and inept, flailing wildly in the wake of his young girlfriend's inadvertent fame. On the flip side is Bridget Fonda's Mandy Rice-Davies, Christine's sloe-eyed galpal and a media manipulator extraordinaire who turned her supporting role into a star turn; unfortunately, not everyone was as resourceful as Mandy, especially Ward, who found his life shattered beyond repair. (more)

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